Question: Why are most listings for 'Attack Potency' and 'Striking Strength' not what's actually depicted in their respective franchises visually, and

[Loom21]

For instance, all 3rd evolution Pokemon being Mountain level and having Mountain level durability means we should naturally, see a whole lot more carnage going on in a fight between said characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WVomuLuHrQ Ash vs Gary for example, in order for these pokemon to hurt each other, an enormous amount of force must be placed on each other to deal any real damage. So if Blastoise's signature move 'Hydro Pump' were to miss it's target and hit some distant object in the arena, shouldn't that be enough to destroy the the enitre hemisphere of the arena it landed towards, and destroy at least several buildings behind the arena? We're talking about the energy created by some sizeable asteroids here.

I understand the call for plot-induced stupidity, but in this instance Pokemon battles like this are what the franchise has been built off of, and cannot be dismissed unless referring to some external non-canon medium.

Another example of mine would be the extreme fights taking place in the Dragon Ball franchise. Characters who are rated to be powerful enough to put an entire galaxy's wellbeing in jeopardy, are incapable of causing any real enviromental damage to the planet they're fighting on, let alone their Solar System, and even their galaxy. Characters who are capable of fighting at speeds that make anything moving at remotely luminal speeds look almost frozen in time, are yet, incapable of creating any type of collateral damage anywhere near what's realistic in the enviroment they're fighting on, whether it be on Earth or on some alien planet.

We could get into the topic of animation, production budgetting and whatnot, but these are instances that are exactly as depicted originally on a far less costly, practical and concrete mode of creative expression, manga.

Now I know in a lot of these cases, a lot of these values were given from pure explicit word from reputable characters within said franchises, (e.g Jiren's fists being capable of shaking the infinite universe that is the 'World of Void') but in that case, doesn't that only complicate things further? It effectively alienates any type of fight we've seen within each respective franchise, and basically makes almost any type of combat between said characters seem like either plot-induced stupidity, or character-induced stupidity. That being said, I'll admit I don't know what boundaries were written that signify what is considered an outlier and whatnot, but I feel like a topic like this heavily complicates a topic like that, and as a result, heavily complicates my view of how a lot of these fights go down in this wiki.

I'm not trying to invalidate any fights here, I'm just wondering how a lot of these values were confidently placed on their respective franchises, and used between in obscure battles between said franchises

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Simple, youre mixing up Attack Potency and Destructive Capacity. Attack Potency is how powerful an attack itself is, whereas Destructive Capacity is the amount of destruction an attack can cause. A character with a certain degree of attack potency can harm characters that can withstand such forces, but they dont not necessarily need to cause destructive feats on that level to be rated as such.

 

[Andytrenom]

I think the concept known as "Area of effect" is what's in effect here. Basically, if a tier 8 or higher character was allowed to perform the same level of destruction he has with his best feats every time he launches an attack it would make writing any fights between two characters virtually impossible, so the writers have to make concessions where city or country or planet level characters don't invariably blow up cities or countries or planets with their every attack

 

[DarkGrath]

Weekly is correct. To vastly oversimplify the situation, it is explained with some detail on the Attack Potency page.

"We are aware that this technically violates the principle of conservation of energy, as it should logically disperse upon impact, but fiction generally tends to ignore this fact, so we overlook it as well."

Essentially, since almost no pieces of fiction use the fact that energy dispersing upon impact would cause an "area-of-effect", it is not used for AP.

 

[The_real_cal_howard]

What everyone said so far is true. In fact, the only series I can think of where they fully take advantage of the tiers the characters are in is the second half of Gurren Lagann.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree with Weekly and Andy, and it's even explained in the Attack Potency's page.

 

[Loom21]

I see, thank you all for your answers! I had no clue about the distinction between destructive capacity and attack potency, I only assumed they were one in the same. That conservation of energy statement makes sense, fights are leveled to a certain mode/nature of impact to better rationalize the way they go down. Understandable, thank you all for your time

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Happy to help

 

[Yobo_Blue]

Also, assuming that much damage occurs every time is a AoE fallacy for that reason.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

So is this thread concluded?

 

[Loom21]

It is concluded, I'm not sure how to close my thread unfortunately :/

 

[AKM sama]

It is concluded, I'm not sure how to close my thread unfortunately :/

You're not supposed to. Only discussion mods and admins can close threads.